Have You Seen The Wind

Emmanuel Ede, Nigeria

She’d done it again.

Iska was perched atop the roof watching the sun as it sank into loam on the far horizon. She felt the change in the earth as it cooled and expanded taking up more space than it normally did. Through the rustling sounds that small animals made as they scurried about in the fading light, she heard John call her name.

  She watched him run dazedly out of the house, eyes wild. His clothes were ruffled and his hair was disheveled from passing his hands through it too often.

He ran a hand through the unruly black hair that curled ever so invitingly. Who wouldn’t fall victim to those luxurious curls? He yelled her name again and the sound cut through her—broken; pained, strained…

She closed her eyes, willing the tears to go back. They did not. She could bear to look at his tortured, burnished brown face no more—a face that shone even in the dim lighting the moon provided as it snuck glances from behind scanty clouds.

She left.

There were no goodbyes.

As Iska soared above the clouds, she felt the air grow more and more frigid. It was like a shrugging-off of old skin. She knew she shouldn’t be involved—not with the mortals, but something always made her stop.

Something about the fragility of humanity that appealed to the wind, made it want to stop by every now and then, pulled out of its celestial journey across the Earth and dally with the mortals: whisper a word here, ruffle through a few clothes there, play with the kites and toss balloons into the sky…

Something about humans, and their humanity…

Iska pushed against the blanket of clouds, breaking through to the illumination of dazzling, silvery-blue moonlight. She soared here amongst the clouds, and each time the clouds brushed themselves against lustrous brown skin illuminated by the mercury hue of the moon, thoughts of John slogged through her lightening mind.

She laughed in the aether and did elegant whirls and loops, then shot ahead, perfect white teeth sparkling with moonlight. John was human; he would get over it—she already had, and she wasn’t even human.

He would surely survive, but right now, there were places she had to go, places to see… places to be.

Iska chortled as a cumulonimbus cloud brushed the tip of her burnished button nose. The night was still young, and there was still a lot to see. She slowed her descent and spun down in a soft gust. The air felt different… smelt different. It wasn’t dense and tree-smelling like John’s, she noticed.

Iska couldn’t place it, but the environment felt different somehow—more. It felt both ancient and modern at the same time, or perhaps she was the anachronism here; the earth did not even smell the same. She would bother about such things later. She was still excited from flying for so long, but she needed rest.

Here, the flowers were in bloom—she could smell it in the fields—and even though it was still night and all the petals had closed up, Iska twirled around, laughing as her spinning shook the pollen out of the flowers’ clenched petals and suspended them on the wind where they floated around her like her very own planetary ring.

She closed her eyes and sank to the pillow-soft, flowery fields with a contented sigh.

When she woke up, the sun was streaming in her eyes and there was a smiling, red man in front of her. He had large muscles and a small frame. Iska knew she was going to be taller than him.

The man offered her a hand, still smiling. She took the hand and rose to her feet while the man adjusted his pants.

Had he…? She thought, then quickly glanced down at herself, but as if hearing her thoughts, the man made a hacking sound she assumed was supposed to be laughter, turned even redder and assured her he’d done nothing. He just didn’t meet many people sleeping in the fields.

Iska stared.

“I uh, got me a barn up the hill,” the man said, adjusting a hat she had not noticed before. “I’ve uh… I got me some eggs, and there’s meat and some potatohs if y’want some,” he said rapidly with an accent she could not place.

He took a step back from her and held his straw hat to his chest. “I ain’t ‘gon hurt you. I’m just trynna help,” he said, the words chewed, and stretched his hand again. This time, she smiled and took his hand and let him lead her down to his barn where she scarfed down a hearty breakfast of eggs (too many eggs), strips of bacon and a dollop of mashed potatoes and brown gravy.

She sighed contentedly and pushed back from the table. The red man had smiled as she ate, a too-familiar glint in his eyes, but she was too full to care right now. He packed up the plates and placed a cup of milk in her hand which she guzzled and immediately felt sleepy.

The red-faced-man (his name was Zeke) picked her in his arms and carried her up a flight of stairs to a room with a thick wooden door. He nudged the door open with his boot and shimmied into the room with Iska in his arms, thick locks sweeping over her face.

For a man she was taller than, he had surprising strength, Iska mulled as she allowed herself to be carried. Zeke placed her gently on the bed and retreated. She mumbled and snuggled against the comfort of the bed while the wind swirled soothingly outside. She heard the door lock click with a dull sound.

She felt rather than saw, Zeke slide a hand up her shirt, and heard him comment on the unnatural lightness of the material. He mumbled something as he palmed a globular breast.

The wind swirled agitatedly outside.

He unbuttoned her pants and immediately, there was a loud crack like thunder. Zeke yelled as a pulse of wind flung him off her body. He crashed into and broke a support beam as he flew through the air and crumpled when he hit the wall. The roof blew off the barn and the wind rushed in, shredding through everything.

Iska was standing now—no, floating. She must have been a whole foot, perhaps even more off the ground, but Zeke did not care.

“What do you do, mortal?” she hissed, her voice as if become one with the wind, susurrating and echoing all around him. “No one dares touch me unless I bid them to. Even fools know this.”

Zeke looked at her with wild eyes. “Now whatchu mean ‘no one touch you’?” He spat, spittle streaming from his mouth and streaking down his jaw. “I done given you food a-a-and a place to sleep, and this how you ‘gon talk? Y-you got to let me. Y’hear me? I… I done been nice to you, now it’s your turn.”

He tried to stand up and fell. Again and again. Iska glared down at him with rage in her eyes.

“You are lucky I let you leave with your life.” She said authoritatively. “I belong to no man. I belong to no one.”

The wind was howling even more loudly outside and had whipped itself into a frenzy: it completely covered the barn in a swirling dark expanse like a tornado. In the barn, Iska walked towards the roaring winds.

“Now you wait one minute here!” Zeke yelled, pulling himself along the floorboards. “You ain’t going nowhere until I’m done with you—” he said as a hand latched onto Iska’s black boot. She glanced down once, eyes blackened in anger and the crack noise sounded again, closer this time and Zeke only had enough time to think about the mistake he’d made.

The barn exploded with a sound like a balloon popping as the roaring, circling wind closed in over it. When the circling wind died, almost as immediately as it had begun, the barn was no more. The flowers had been utterly uprooted from the fields and the trees in the distance had all lost their leaves, and Iska was gone.

She thought it a shame that the flowers had had to die because of the foolishness of one man. She continued flying, eyes still black as she replayed the look on Zeke’s face over and over again in her mind, getting more and more annoyed each time she saw him touch her.

She stopped abruptly midflight and yelled with an explosive burst. Dark clouds raced to her and swept across the lands below with stormy vengeance. When she looked down at where she’d stopped, all she saw was a windswept village with thatched roofs blown clean off mud huts and fences and chickens still flying and tumbling around in her rage.

She groaned and clenched her fists and shot off with a sonic boom. She’d been here before, she knew.

Africa.

How could she forget? It was where she’d met Agu. And even though she did not want to think of him, she found her mind reeling back to the time with Agu. He’d brought food everyday to the hill where she sat and gazed at the horizon daily, and he’d always been quick to leave, leaving her to the solitude she desired.

Agu would sit with her when she asked him to, and they would talk for hours until he fell asleep. She’d drop him back in his hut, quiet as the wind and breeze back to her hilltop.

Agu had held her by the hand on a night like the others when she left. He made her sleep on the clay bed while he took a mat down to the foot of the door. She knew she shouldn’t have, but sometime in the night, she’d roused Agu with the heat from her naked body.

He’d sung her a song that didn’t sound like a song, and they’d spent every other day in his hut. Until one day when Agu didn’t return home and she knew that the earth had taken him.

She’d cried and taken off in a burst of wind that destroyed Agu’s house. She could hear him singing his not-song now:

Have you seen the wind?

She is a master of evasion

And the art of vanishing

A most beautiful thing

Have you seen the wind?

She spans the breadth

The definition of strength

She goes the length

Have you seen the wind?

She flies alone

The unread tome

The mystery of our home

Have you seen the wind?

Smooth as blades

Softer than rain

Today, she flies again.

That was a long time ago.

Her eyes hardened.

“I belong to no man,” Iska huffed, brown eyes smoldering. A current of wind picked up around her, fluffing her dreadlocks as her thick, luscious lips pressed into a flat line. Melissa couldn’t help but think that she looked beautiful against the backdrop of the starry parchment of sky—like she was made for night.

Melissa’s eyes were wide and brimming and gleaming with a lustre in the dappling moonlight. In the distance, pinpricks of light from the city shone. She swallowed and walked to Iska’s side, putting one hand in hers, then ensconcing her with her warmth. They sat down on the heap of fallen leaves.

“I love it when you say things like that,” Melissa growled low and throaty as she squeezed herself against Iska. “It makes me happy when I think that you’re all mine.” She said, a lazy, blissful smile drawn across her lips, eyes closed dreamily.

Suddenly, Melissa’s eyes shot open. Iska shrugged off her hands and rose, and the wind in the woods, once a blanket of warmth suddenly became frosted fingers.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa asked, alarmed. Iska stood away from her, wind gusting around her and weaving through her hair. She crossed her arms behind her and stood staring off into the great distance.

“You.” Iska seethed through clenched teeth as if the very words were taboo to utter. She turned to face Melissa whose expression was of one who had been slapped. The moon was still high in the sky, colouring everything in its sweep, but Melissa looked as if all the colour had been sucked out of her.

Iska’s eyes bore into hers. “All of you are what’s wrong,” she said and watched Melissa flinch. The wind picked up Iska’s words, amplifying and echoing it around them until it was all Melissa could hear.

“The way you think you own me. I’ll say this again to your hearing: I belong to no man.”

This time, the wind went completely still around them. Melissa stumbled to the ground, dry leaves cascading after her. She brushed the leaves off her face and opened her eyes to see Iska bent over her, brown eyes burning and a scowl on her face.

The tear slid down Melissa’s face.

“B-b-but… I… I don’t—I… I’m a woman—”

“And that means what, exactly?” Iska snapped coldly and Melissa almost swore that she saw frigid air roll off her tongue.

“You mortals… always thinking one is different from the other and not that two is one and three one, too. You are all the same.”

Iska stood straight up, glaring down at Melissa, but now the anger seemed to have seeped out of her. She looked at Melissa with something akin to pity, but the fire still blazed in her eyes.

Melissa whipped her gaze to the ground immediately, shivering. Her pale skin broke out in goosebumps and she snatched at her shoulders, breathing shakily.

How quickly Iska had become so bright, so dangerous… so inhuman. Perhaps she was right, Melissa reasoned. Not her logic, no. That made no sense. But her temperament had switched so quickly… so seamlessly… perhaps she was the wind.

Another tear drop cascaded down Melissa’s face and she finally turned to Iska but Iska’s gaze was already back on the far horizon, arms folded behind her. The current of wind was back again, causing her beautiful dreadlocks to sway in the night air.

Suddenly Melissa couldn’t see the inhuman part she’d seen earlier anymore, all she could see was a woman—a woman with big, beautiful brown eyes and sun-toasted skin like chocolate… a woman that had opened up for her; a woman who understood her. A woman with luscious brown lips and gorgeous swaying hips.

Melissa wanted to reach for her and wrap her in her arms again—smother her with kisses and apologize until Iska buried her against the heat of her nape and the earthy smell of her hair.

Suddenly, all Melissa wanted was to hold on to Iska and be her root—to ground her, steep her in the Earth. She wouldn’t have to move anywhere else again. She’d just be here with her… they’d find peace together, she was sure of it. She just had to reach…

“Iska?” Melissa’s broken voice called out in a whisper, but the figure silhouetted in the light stayed unmoving. “Iska… please…” Melissa pleaded, desperation tingeing her voice. “I… I’m sorry. I just… Iska?”

Iska released her hands and let them fall limply to her sides. She needed to leave.

Her eyes were dry and her gaze straight ahead, not turning back once to Melissa whose hand was still outstretched, Melissa who was still lying in fallen leaves…

“I belong to no man,” Iska said in a low voice devoid of emotion.

The current of wind rose, swirling fallen leaves and broken branches and dead flowers around Iska. Melissa was blown back, leaves, twigs and dirt entangling themselves in her hair, getting in her face, in her mouth…

“Iska!” She called, but it was of no use.

She staggered to the heap of leaves that the wind leveled; the wind quieted down. Melissa was all alone, leaves swirling to a still. She heaved once, then twice. Then she broke and slumped and cried, tears and snot running down her face.

She did not call out for Iska because it was of no use. She’d been a fool to think she could trap the wind, a fool to entice. The wind has no home—the wind is free, freer than the birds that soar in its currents—and the wind will have no home. The wind is a wanderer.

It seeks out new places, never content to be tied down. Never tied down. The wind must move, as all things; a blessing and curse. To journey but never arrive… constantly…

Melissa dried her tears and sat up on the ground that the wind had strewn flowers and browning leaves about. She looked out to the horizon where Iska had been gazing and felt a soft breeze waft through her clothes. She closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the wind but then she straightened up again.

The tears were back in her eyes. The wind had stopped blowing now, but the comfort it offered was not solace, for the wind was void. Iska was not in the wind, it was just empty… Melissa felt hollow.

She wanted to scream and cry herself hoarse, but she had no strength. She was spent. She was empty, and so was the wind.

The wind came but Iska was not with it; when the wind left, Iska was still not there. Melissa clenched her eyes tightly, praying it would be a dream, just that one mistake to let you know how to tread in real life and fix up.

Her heart thumped. Please, she prayed, her heart pounding louder than any drum she’d ever heard. It was of no use, for when she opened her eyes, all she saw was the confirmation to the horror she dreaded.

Iska was gone—like wind.

Emmanuel is a Nigerian writer who writes in prosaic form. He writes a few lines of what he thinks is poetry and can be caught lost in the pages of a good book or moaning about work or school. When he is not writing, he can be found singing, watching anime, or nerding out over fandoms and science. He enjoys music thoroughly.